The Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA DM) working group has formulated a unified DM specification. In this specification, a third party (for example, a mobile operator, a service provider or an information management department of a partner) manages and sets environment and configuration information in a terminal device (for example, a mobile terminal device and a functional object in the terminal device) by using a device management (DM) server to solve problems of the customer premises equipment (CPE) during the use. The DM server and the terminal device form a DM system, in which the DM server may manage and set the terminal device in the over-the-air (OTA) mode, for example, installation and upgrade of software and firmware, to provide personalized services and improve the user experience.
In the DM system, a DM agent in the terminal device is used to interpret and execute management commands sent by the DM server. A DM tree stored in the terminal device may be considered as an interface for the DM server to manage the terminal device over the DM protocol, where the DM tree includes some basic management objects (MOs). The DM server controls the terminal device through MO operation commands, including Get, Replace, Exec, Copy, and Delete.
The Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Forum defines a CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP). The CWMP is used in a DSL network environment to implement functions similar to the OMA DM. In the DSL network environment, an auto-configuration server (ACS) communicates with the terminal device in bidirectional mode through remote procedure call (RPC) commands to implement remote management. The CPE stores various data models for maintaining functional parameters in the CPE.
Generally, the OMA DM specification is used in radio environments, while the CWMP is used in fixed network environments. With the development of radio communication technologies such as wireless fidelity (WIFI) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WIMAX), services are provided through fixed networks although these communication technologies provide mobile functions through radio channels. Thus, during the implementation of the present invention, the inventor discovers that when radio communication modes such as WIFI, WIMAX and WCDMA are converged, no unified protocol or specification is available to manage all terminals in a converged network because terminals in different networks use different management specifications.